ambivalent
/æmˈbɪv.ə.lənt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.01 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Simultaneously experiencing or expressing opposing or contradictory feelings, beliefs, motivations, or meanings.
adj
Alternately being or having one opinion or feeling, and then the opposite.
Example Sentences
- "In modern burlesque [...] sexual and erotic stimuli are often present in concealed and ambivalent doubles entendres."
- "The great sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argued that philo-Semitism and anti-Semitism both fall under “allosemitism”: literally Othering the Jew. He defined it not as resentment of what is different, which is xenophobia, but rather of what defies order and clear categories. In 1997, he wrote, “The Jew is ambivalence incarnate. And ambivalence is ambivalence mostly because it cannot be contemplated without ambivalent feeling: it is simultaneously attractive and repelling.”"
- "His feelings toward his parents are ambivalent."
Etymology
Back-formation from ambivalence, from German Ambivalenz, from Latin ambi- (“in two ways”) + valeō (“be strong”); equivalent to ambi- + -valent. Compare ambivert.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /æmˈbɪv.ə.lənt/
- British English: /æmˈbɪv.ə.lənt/
Inflected Forms
more ambivalent (comparative)
most ambivalent (superlative)